Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	faith_n	grace_n	work_v	7,291	5	7.3947	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93655	The opening of Master Prynnes new book, called A vindication: or, light breaking out from a cloud of differences, or late controversies. Wherein are inferences upon the Vindication, and antiqueres to the queres; and by that, the way a little cleared to a further discovery of truth in a church-order, by a conference or discourse. / By John Saltmarsh, preacher at Brasteed in Kent. Published according to order.	Saltmarsh, John, d. 1647.	1645 (1645)	Wing S493; Thomason E305_22; ESTC R200328	25,183	50

in the Supper to his own end therefore it will serve to any end That we can prove of our own imagining upon certain rational conclusions from Scripture or reason without particular Scriptures authorizing or appointing it to such an end and therefore all these grounds consequences and notions which are formed upon a likelihood and probability are nothing to prove any direct use of the Sacrament to such an end without as I have said a special Word Precept or Practice or just Consequence from Scriptures directed to such a proof for else there is scarce any thing but we may reason into a notion of likelihood but faith must have better grounds and not of private interpretation and the Scriptures that are alleadged must not be to prove that things of lively representation may most affect the soul and have done so but that these Scriptures are plainly or powerfully directed by the Spirit of God to prove the very Institution of the supper to that end which none of those Scriptures prove that are alleadged in fol. 42. Vindication fol. 43. That God doth as effectually teach convert and work grace by the eye as ear and therefore were the Sacraments Sacrifices Types Miracles c. Why should not then the visible expressions of Christ in the Sacrament now have the like effectual converting power Inference We may infer as we have done before That all these are but Why should nots no words of Institution or Authority in the Scriptures for it But further the Legal Sacraments c. were carnal and more to the sense and more of representation but these are more in the spirit under the Gospel we worship now in spirit and in truth not by representations us under the Law And therefore it is that the Gospel Ordinances are so few so plain and poor to the eye that the soul may not be taken up with the signe but with things spiritual And we may observe that as little as can be of outward elements are made use on as in Baptism meer water and in the Supper Wine and Bread and the first Ordinance is called The Baptism of the Spirit not of water and the bread and wine The Communion of the Body and of the Blood of Christ not bread and wine And saith the Apostle If we have known Christ after the flesh henceforth know we have no more And further What is it that is said of grace coming in by the eye This is the way the Papists let in Christ having made the eye rather the organ for conversion then the ear now Faith cometh by hearing and therefore all their Idolatrous pictures their Imagery and theabical representations are all for the eye and bringing in Christ by Optick or sense and making conversion to be by perspective and working onely an historical faith And further What is it that is said of working grace by the eye As if the carnal part could advantage conversion by any power there but such a power as is meerly carnal and natural What can all these signes of the Lord Jesus do upon a blinde soul as all unregenerate men are What are the glorious colours to him that hath no eyes to see The signes of bread and wine are given for working symbolically or by signe upon a soul or understanding spiritually enlightned before and having a discerning and therefore it is that the Apostle saith He that eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks damnation to himself not discerning the Lords Body which if the Supper had been a converting Ordinance the Apostle would not have charged the unworthy from receiving but rather have encouraged them in their receiving that of unworthy they might have been made worthy But you see he calls for a right discerning of the Lords Body first which cannot be a calling of the unregenerate or unconverted to a partaking because they have no right discerning of the Body of Christ but by the sense first converted Vindication fol. 44. 1. That the most humbling melting soul-changing sin-purging mollifying meditations of all others are from Christs death and passion c. and therefore c. 2. Afflictions and corporal punishments are converting Ordinances therefore c. 3. That unworthy participating is a means of spiritual hardning and so by the rule of contraries a worthy receiving an instrument of conversion 4. All the ends of it are as appears so spiritual see his Scriptures that how is it possible it should not be Gods intention and Christs Ordination to be a converting Ordination 5. Conversion is a turning of the whole man unto love obedience of God in Christ from the love of the world c. and what engine more powerful for the forecited respects or spiritual ends 6. Experience in every Christians conscience whose preparations and approaches to this Sacrament were the first effectual means of their conversion yea they had not been converted if debarred from it Inference We may infer upon the first that there are soul-melting meditations in a soul unconverted or unmelted and that there are soul-changing meditations in a soul unchanged which the Scriptures never speak on such ways of conversion are no ways in the Word that we read on but hidden paths for the spirit of mans devising Secondly that because afflictions are therefore Sacraments are that is because one thing is therefore another thing is This is but the Old Argument But God may sanctifie any thing at his own pleasure to make way for Conversion and yet that no instituted Ordinance for conversion neither Because some have been converted when afflicted when sick when poor therefore will you first go afflict them and make them sick and poor taking all they have from them that you may convert them and so make them standing Ordinances Thirdly Is a rule of contraries a rule in the Scriptures or in Logick But it is said Worthy receiving is an instrument of conversion that is Conversion is an means of conversion who can receive worthily till in Christ till converted 4. But all the ends of it are spiritual and how is it possible but then it should convert This How is it possible is like that of Why should it not both of one strength to prove it for though the ends be never so spiritual yet if there be no warrant for any such institution as conversion all the reasons and extrinsecal or strange consequences as all such are cannot institute an Ordinance none but God and Christ and therefore the Popish Arguments built upon such forreign and external though rational consequences are not immediate nor intrinsecal enough to warrant any thing of their will-worship 5. But it is a powerful engine Yea but onely for what it is instituted and ordained nor is it lesse excellent because it converts not because every thing is beautiful in its order and place and law of creation 6. But the experiences of Christians witnesse who had never been converted if not at the Sacrament But what Christians are these What kinde of

whom the Apostles could no longer suffer not by way of discipline or inflicting Censure but by way of a spiritual contrarinesse to such grosse hypocrisie and sin discovered And so the experiences of all that are of a pure Gospel-temper will witnesse to this very Age in acts of spiritual fellowship and Community in all acts of Worship c. This is founded not onely spiritual antipathies and sympathies but in natural and civil natural things of a contrary nature bearing one another no lesse and things of a civil nature yet contrary doing the like Hence arise separations meerly natural and sensitive and rational Hence arises a particular Schism and separation in all the things of the world and a secret gathering and contracting of things from the contrary into the same kinde the common purity being lost as the Apostle implies by which Nature did at first more universally agree as if one common spirit had been in it And thus it was in the Churches of God at first when three four or five thousand did agree in one way of spiritual fellowship Doctrine breaking of bread and Prayers but we see there is not now such pourings out of spirit upon multitudes and Nations that a National-Church should be together in such a unity of spirit And under the Law there was even a weaker example in the people of the jews being taken out from the people of the world and naturally hating all that were common and unclean as the Gentiles And before the Law the people of God did gather into Families and particular societies as in Abraham c. And those Families the children of the Bond-woman and of the free never bearing but persecuting each other So as all of pure spiritual constitution cannot but experimentally finde a spiritual nature in themselves working them into a more glorious fellowship then that of the world The sum of the Argument If then there be two contrary natures of Spirit and Flesh if these cannot nor never could in experience of all Ages and according to the truth in Scriptures and example of all there bear each other into the same spiritual society or fellowship if nature it self in the creatures run out into antipathies and sympathies that is into particular gatherings and separations mutual opposings and resistings of each other when together Then spiritual and unmixt Communion and Fellowship from the world and men of the world is warrantable But all this is undeniably true to the experience of all Therefore spiritual unmixt Communion and Fellowship from the world and men of the world is warrantable II. Argument from the Power of Spiritual Ordinances and Dispensations THe Gospel-Ordinances brought into the World a power and spiritual Law in them though in degrees and measures and several givings out as in Johns time and his Disciples in Christs own time and his Disciples and in the Spirits time and according to these times of manifestation believers were wrought upon in Johns time they came out to the Baptism of Water in Christs and his Disciples to the preaching of the Word in the Spirits time to the Baptism of the Spirit to a more mighty and glorious working and all these times of Gospel-manifestation had a prevailing losse and more upon the believers of these several times in drawing them out from the world in part though weakly in Johns time it is said Then come out unto him all Judea yet though they were Baptised of him they gathered not off into such particular societies as after The Kingdom of God then was but at hand in Christs time though his preaching was powerful yet he let out the glory of his spirit but sometimes with the Word reserving his more glorious manifestations for other times and even here though Christs preaching gathered in his Apostles and Disciples into some particular and neerer way to himself yet not many more nay he rather left many partly in that mixed condition of society he found them and so the Disciples Commission which was given was to preach but little yet of Church-gathering but by way of Prophecy as in Matth. 16. and 18. The Kingdom of God was but yet at hand not come In the Spirits time then the Kingdom of God was come and then a mighty operation and measure of the Spirit was powred out and then the believers through the powerful working were brought more off from the World and began to gather in closer to Christ and one another And now all power was given to Christ which was not before his Resurrection and now he sets up a Kingdom All power is given into my hands and now the Kingdom begins to be set up in the hearts and practice of believers and the Spirit to mold and cast the believers into Brother hoods and societies and the form of a Kingdom and now the Laws and spiritual policy are given out for ordering this Kingdom And we see how the people of God in Rome Corinth Ephesus Galatia drew off from the world in the things of the Lord We see then how the Word did begin to work Believers into a fellowship from the world and the more the spirit was given the more and more off from the world in all these several times And it is a rational truth and a clear conclusion even to meer reason that the more Christ and his Spirit is in any the more neer and close they will gather up to heaven and walkings with God and the more Christward any one is the more off still from the multitude of the world And thus the Ordinances of Jesus Christ in which the Spirit breathes so powerfully work men off from the mixed world into fellowship with the Lord and that spiritual fellowship makes them rejoyce more in one another then in any other that are more carnal The more men live to Christ the more they die to the world and are formed into the fellowship of his death and Resurrection The sum of the Argument If then the Ordinances and Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ had ever a power in some degree of prevailing upon the souls of Believers according to the manifestation of the Spirit and if this Spirit flowing from God and Christ carry up the soul to God and Christ according to the measure given to those Believers and if the more they are carried towards Christ the more they must come off from the world Then Congregational or Church-order wherein Believers are gathered into fellowship with God in Christ and one another from the world in the things of the Gospel and unmixt communion is warrantable But all this is undeniably true from the Word Therefore Church-fellowship and unmixt Communion is warrantable III. Argument IF mixed communion and society came in upon the Apostacie and falling away and Parochial Congregations were formed up afterward from such mixt Communion If as Antichrist prevailed so darknesse and corruption prevailed upon Believers If Churches were called Golden Candlesticks before and a Fellowship of Saints and the Body of Christ and Kingdom of God till they grew mixed If the mixt Congregations by Parishes came in first by Dionysius Bishop of Rome in the yeer 267 and in England by Honorius Bishop of Canterbury and people were onely made Congregations by conveniency of situation and the Law of civil Politie If Parishes were first the seats of Popery and after the seats of Prelacy and now fall under the Presbytery in the same kinde and notion of a mixed multitude Then mixt and Parochial Congregations are not that way and order of Christ for Ordinances which was the primitive way revealed and practised in the Gospel But all this is undeniably true from the best Historians Therefore not mixt Communion and Fellowship but pure and unmixt is the onely Ordinance of Christ Now I shall leave you for the present and commend particulars unto you and the Kingdom the one A rule of Evidences for Spiritual Communion drawn from the Scriptures the other A remarkable passage in the Book of Vindication The Rule of Evidences FOR Spiritual-Communion MAtth. 15. 26. Chap. 18. 19 20. Joh. 10. 16. Acts 2. 44 46. Chap. 19. 9. Rom. 1. 7. Chap. 16. 17 18. 1 Cor. 1. 1 10. Chap. 5. 4 5 11 13. and 12. 12 13 14 20 25 27. 2 Cor. 5. 6 7. Chap. 6. 14 15 16 17. Gal. 5. 9 10 12 13. Chap. Chap. 6. 16. Ephes. 4. 3 4 25. Chap. 5. 1 2 11 12 21 30. Phil. 3. 15 16 17. 1 Thess. 3. 6. 2 Thess. 3. 14. 1 Tim. 6. 3 4 5. 2 Tim. 3. 5. Tit. 3. 10. Hebr. 10. 25. 1 Pet. 2. 9. 1 Joh. 1. 7. 2 Joh. v. 10 11. Revel. 2. 14 15 20. Chap. 18. 4. and 19. 20. A remarkable Passage in the Vindication-Book ANd if our Assembly and Ministers will but diligently preach against that Catalogue of scandalous sins and sinners they have presented to the Parliament and the Parliament prescribe severe Temporal Laws and Punishments against them and appoint good Civil Magistrates to see them duely executed inflicted I am confident that this would work a greater Reformation in our Church and State in one half yeer then all the Church-Discipline and Censures now so eagerly contested for will do in an Age and will be the onely true way and speediest course to reform both Church and State at once which I hope the Parliament will consider of and take care that our Ministers like the Bishops formerly may not now be taken up with Ruling and Governing but Preaching and Instructing which is work enough wholly to engrosse their time and thoughts FINIS Vindication fol. 1. Vindication fol. 3. Fol. 3. Fol. 6. Fol. 9. Fol. 14. Fol. 17. Fol. 28. Fol. 35. Fol. 40 41 c. Fol. 48. Fol. 49. Fol. 50. Fol. 57. Fol. 58. Fol. 59. Vind. l. fol. 59. Fol. 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28. Rom. 14. See fol. 3 c. 1 Kings 6. 4. Luke 7. 34 c. 1 Cor. 11. Fol. 3 4 6 9. In Fol. 3 4 6 9 Rom. 8. Matth. 8. Ephes. 4. 8 11. Revel. cha. 2 3. Rev. 2. 1. 1 Cor. 1. 9. Ephes. 2. 19 c. 2 Cor. 6. 15 16 17. See the learned Mr. Selden in his Book De decimis